Villanueva winner of 21st District seat in Va. Beach

While the residents of the old unincorporated Princess Anne County, now the city of Virginia Beach, and the city I was raised in, have been traditionally very conservative socially, philosophically and economically, they have nontheless, had an ongoing infatuation with d-RATs.

Even with the election of it’s first Republican Congressman in G. William Whitehurst, a tenured history professor at Old Dominion University, the area continued, with few exceptions, to send d-RATs to the State House, and local city-wide governmental positions. Former US Congressman Whitehurst was able to buck the trend, because he had a segment on a local network affiliate highlighting various historical events in Virginia Beach and old Princess Anne County’s history. This gave him the bully pulpit to reach the voters, and be the first GOP Representative from this district since Reconstruction. Without this exposure Whitehurst told me that he wouldn’t have had a chance to buck the old “Bryd Machine” and make political history.

I am happy to see the GOP continue to make inroads in this conservative district, and it is particularly pleasing to see a Republican by the name of Villanueva pull out this victory. It says a lot about the GOP’s prospects in 2010, 2012, and beyond.

Wow, that’s quite a lopsided margin. Hoping to hold Cuccinelli’s spot in the Senate in January. No rest allowed!

One (or two) minor corrections. Whitehurst was first elected from a very compact district that was effectively just Norfolk (this in 1968). In ‘72, Norfolk’s declining population forced its extension eastward to take in the northern half of Virginia Beach, and by ‘82, virtually all of V.B.

Also, Whitehurst wasn’t the first Republican to represent the district since Reconstruction. In 1928, Herbert Hoover’s victory in the state had coattails for 3 GOP House candidates (no doubt to the horror of then-Gov. Harry Byrd, Sr.). In the westernmost 9th (where Rick Boucher sits today), in the 7th (the upper Shenandoah Valley, including Byrd’s hometown of Winchester), and the 2nd (a large district including what is now all of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, and Southampton Co.). With the 1930 election, the two other Republicans in the 7th and 9th were swept out, but Menalcus Lankford of Norfolk somehow managed through personal appeal to hold onto this district for a 2nd term. He didn’t repeat it in 1932 when slow growth in the state required the elimination of a district and all the candidates for Congress had to run at-large statewide. He’d be the last Republican elected to Congress from VA until Ike (like Hoover in 1928) won and swept in 3 Republicans in 1952.

Not quite as good as 2001, though. ;-) As far as I know, both the Indies have caucused with the GOP. I know why Lacey Putney feels comfortable as an Independent, but Watkins Abbitt, Jr. must be doing so because he wouldn’t want his same-named Byrd Democrat father (and former Congressman from the old 4th) to turn cartwheels in his grave were he to officially become a Republican.

They were more than just minor corrections, but as usual, you were much too much the gentleman to say it. Furthermore, I have to say that I learn as much from your posts, even about my own political backyard (growing up in Princess Anne County/ Virginia Beach), as I do from reading and listening to the brilliant Michael Barone.

I cast my first vote for Harry F. Byrd Jr, who was running as an Independent, in a 3 man race (I never could understand why the Virginia GOP would put up a candidate against Byrd Jr.) in 1970, and remember voting for G.William Whitehurst in 1972. But in searching my memory, you are right on, Whitehurst was not on the ballot in 1970 in my Virginia Beach precinct.

I also didn’t know that the arch RINO, Herbert Hoover, (who served in the Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge cabinets, and from what I understand, did not disclose his party affiliation until 1927 when it appeared that he could abscond with the GOP Presidential nomination) had coattails in some House Congressional races. I will make it a point to do some research on Menalcus Lankford of Norfolk. Also, was Ike able to carry any Tidewater GOP Congressional Candidates over the finish line in the 1952 GE, or was he wearing an Eisenhower jacket that day?

I really have a lot of respect for Professor Whitehurst ( and I understand that he’s still lecturing at Old Dominion). He was a regular fixture at WTAR for many years, and I credit him with doing for young people, in Tidewater, what William F. Buckley did nationwide with Firing Line. Too Whitehurst’s lasting credit, he was the Congressman that discovered and made public the fact that Son of Sam, the mass murderer, had been receiving SS benefits.

Regarding the 1970 election, all of VA Beach was attached (however haphazardly and without respect to contiguousness (is that a word ?) to the Newport News-based 1st District. Tom Downing was the Conservative Democrat incumbent in your district then and he had no GOP opponent in 1970 (when a Republican ran against him in ‘68, that person received just 15%). The legislature removed VA Beach and gave it to Whitehurst for ‘72 because of the growing GOP presence there.

I had forgotten the GOP had a candidate against the Independent Byrd, Jr. in ‘70 (BTW, former Senator Byrd turns 95 on Sunday). That was Ray Garland, a member of the House of Delegates. I thought there wasn’t much of a story about it, but I was quite wrong. I revisited my copy of Barone’s 1st edition (covering the ‘70 elections) and got brought up to speed. Sen. Byrd initially looked to be in trouble going into 1970. The left was rising rapidly in the party and was looking to rid itself of the very namesake of the old Byrd Machine. They managed to purge (by an extremely narrow margin, 611 votes out of nearly a half-million cast) Willis Robertson in 1966 (Pat’s dad), in favor of William Spong (although of the “moderate” persuasion, were Spong in the Senate today, he’d be its most Conservative Democrat, showing just how far to the left the party has gone).

Byrd concluded if he ran in the Democrat party, especially against a united liberal opponent, he’d probably lose the primary like Robertson did. Pulling a Strom Thurmond was going to be tricky as well (which I’ll explain in a moment), so in March ‘70, he officially became an Independent. The bulk of Republicans, well, at least Conservative ones, were satisfied with the Indy switch and were prepared to give him their full support for the general election over whomever the Dems chose. In the meantime, the Dem primary occurred without Byrd (or the Machine’s) participation, so it was an orgy of liberals. It was also an astonishingly low turnout (whereas the ‘66 primary between Robertson and Spong had about 450,000 participants, the 3-man race between former Delegate George Rawlings, Jr., Clive Duval & Milton Colvin took place in July, drawing just under 130,000 voters).

Rawlings, the endorsed/preferred candidate of the leftist Henry Howell, edged Duval by just 700 votes, but it was not enough to win outright. Duval smartly chose not to contest and keep Rawlings “undamaged” to face Byrd. Both Rawlings and Duval had experience with running in federal races. Duval ran a credible race against Joel Broyhill in the DC suburbs 10th in 1966 (getting over 40%). Rawlings, however, was a liberal rock star. In the ‘66 Dem primary, he narrowly beat, by 645 votes, 36-year incumbent Howard W. Smith, in the 8th District. Smith and the Byrd Machine, however, had the last laugh when they gave their full endorsement to the Republican, Bill Scott, who went on to thump Rawlings (and in 1972, Sen. William Spong).

So then why wasn’t Byrd able to make the switch to the GOP himself ? Possibly for personal reasons, but arguably there was going to be one man who would not “tolerate” the GOP giving Byrd a free pass for the 1970 elections, and that man was the infamous liberal RINO Governor Linwood Holton, then barely into his first year as the first modern-era GOP Governor. Holton went out and personally recruited Del. Ray Garland, ostensibly a “Holton RINO”, who would position himself between Byrd on the right and Rawlings on the left.

As it turned out, Holton probably did Byrd an enormous favor here (and not meaning to, either !). Because with Byrd drawing two anti-Byrd candidates, it freed him up and allowed Rawlings and Garland to go after each other, since there was now almost no way for him to lose. Absent Garland, that race would’ve been a lot closer and Rawlings could’ve focused 100% attention on the race. In the end, Byrd got 54%, Rawlings got a paltry 31%, and Garland got 15%. Garland was still a sitting Delegate, so he didn’t lose his seat. 14 years later he ran a credible, but losing race against Jim Olin in the Roanoke-based 6th. As for Rawlings, he spent the rest of the ‘70s working to completely purge what was left of the Byrd Machine and its Conservative remnants. After that, Rawlings told his wife he preferred men, and also turned out to be a crook, caught embezzling funds from his law client’s account. He died in April this year at the age of 87.

To answer your other point, regarding the 1952 election. The three GOP House winners hailed from the 6th (then Roanoke/Lynchburg based), Richard Poff (still alive today at 86), the far-western 9th (whose far-westernmost point is closer to my district in Nashville, Tennessee than the Tidewater or Richmond) with William Wampler, Sr. (also still alive today at 83), and the then-newly-created 10th district (what was mostly Fairfax County) with Joel Broyhill. Poff remained in the House until he retired in 1972 and went to the VA Supreme Court (the Dem majority in the legislature mean-spiritedly removed his hometown of Radford from the 6th, putting it into the 9th with Wampler, but the GOP held the seat anyway with Caldwell Butler).

Wampler actually lost reelection by an extremely narrow margin in 1954 to Pat Jennings. 12 years later during the anti-LBJ landslide of ‘66, he made a comeback and knocked off Jennings. He held the seat until 1982 when then-State Sen. Rick Boucher narrowly beat him (and still holds the seat today) after the Dem legislature was finally successful in taking a great big bite out of our 9R-1 DINO majority going into that election. As for Broyhill, he also narrowly won the first time in ‘52 and with the growing presence of ultraliberals in the DC area, had numerous close calls. He finally lost in the 1974 Watergate landslide to Democrat Joseph Fisher (Fisher in turn would lose to Republican Frank Wolf in 1980, who still holds the seat today, although the district that elected Broyhill and the current 10th are not quite the same, with Wolf’s district having moved much further westward).

To your other question about what other candidates we put up in VA districts in ‘52, well, the then-1st district Dem incumbent, Edward Robeson of Newport News, had no GOP opponent. We did put up someone against him in 1956, Horace Henderson, who got 49% against Robeson. Henderson ran for Lt Governor the following year and lost, and he ran a desultory Independent candidacy against Bill Scott and William Spong in the ‘72 Senate race, getting barely 2%. Robeson was probably spooked enough by his close call in ‘56 that he lost renomination to Downing in ‘58 (we ran no candidate against Downing that year in the general).

In the adjacent 2nd (Norfolk), we also didn’t challenge Dem incumbent Porter Hardy, Jr. The GOP opponents he had over the years didn’t get out of the 20% range. Professor Whitehurst took his open seat by a 54-46% margin over Dem Frederick Stant in 1968.

In the 3rd (then Richmond), J. Vaughan Gary faced a credible challenger in Walter Gambill, but won 58-42%. Gary was nearly beaten 10 years later (where he won by just a few hundred votes) to Louis Williams. Gary opted not to run in ‘64 and was succeeded by Dave Satterfield, III (more notable for whom Satterfield beat, a young Dick Obenshain, by a heartbreaking 600+ vote margin in an unusual three-way race featuring an Independent who was only a couple points behind Satterfield and Obenshain, one Edward Haddock, a former Mayor of Richmond and state legislator).

In the rural 4th Piedmont (Appomattox), that was heavy old-school Dem territory, and the GOP rarely contested it, it was held by Watkins Abbitt (whose son sits in the VA House today as an Independent, steadfastly refusing to switch to the GOP out of respect for pop).

Another rural 5th district was occupied by another old-school Dem, Thomas Stanley, who won unopposed, but he was ginning up to run for Governor the following year, and won, and the GOP ran a candidate, Lorne Campbell, in a ‘53 special against Dem William Tuck, but lost 58-42%.

Jumping to the 7th, in central VA, was Dem Burr Harrison, but he largely demolished his GOP opponents, who only received between 20-30%.

In the close-in DC suburbs of the 8th, represented by legendary Dem Howard Smith, he usually had opponents, but not always Republicans. He faced an Indy challenger in ‘52 who got 1/4th of the vote.

And I covered the 9th and 10th above, so that’s about it. Any other questions you have, I’ll try to answer ‘em if I know.

You know what’s funny is I met Bill Scott in 1972. I was a junior in College and he was holding a fundraiser that I was fortunate to attend. He autographed his picture for me, but I can’t find it, oh well. I do know that he was voted by some liberal publication, no doubt, as the dumbest member of the US Senate sometime in the early seventies. I also met Paul Trible who won Harry F.Byrd’s seat when Byrd decided to retire in 1976. I was also underwhelmed by him, however, unlike the authentic Scott, Trible seemed to be a political opportunist par excellance.

What I have never been able to understand is how Virginians could throw out A.Willis Robertson (Pat Robertson’s father). Robertson I believe at the time, was the Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman, and was instrumental, or had the potential of bringing in a lot of federal pork. Can you imagine West Virginians defeating the king of West Virginia largess and pork in Robert Byrd during a d-RAT primary? I can’t either, but that’s essentially what Virginians did when I was eleven years old (1962). And by William B. Spong, an empty suit masquerading as a principled politician. I suppose Spong would be a far right “neanderthal” (he actually looked like one as I recollect) by todays’ standards, and I do believe Spong was from the Tidewater area, because I was becoming politically aware at this stage in my life, and I remember the Virginia Pilot and the local network affiliates treating Spong like some kind of white knight, or demigod who could do no wrong.

I remember howling Henry Henry as a dangerous demagogue always denouncing VEPCO (Virginia Electric and Power Company) and other special interests. He seemed to be Virginians belated answer to Louisiana’s Huey Pierce Long. Sometime later I found out that the liberal/leftist professor at UVA, who tries to come off on FOX as an “objective” academic, the infamous Larry Sabato, was Howell’s campaign manager in Howells failed bids for VA governor.

Some years later I met Mills Godwin at the 1981 CPAC Convention. I had a nice long talk with him, and he was a real prince of a guy, and very intelligent, or so he seemed.

Correction: I was 15 years old in 1966 when Robertson was deposed in 1966, as you correctly indicated in your post.

I heard that Lynwood Holton’s wife endorsed Creigh Bad Deeds(If true,I am not surprised in the least. Her husband was a lousy failure, and a political disgrace. And I think the only thing I remember about him, besides him being a typical RINO, was his contribution to the State of it’s slogan: “Virginia is for Lovers.” Some legacy huh?Also, Holton reminded me of a eastern establishment scranton/rocky type of Republican, and I can see him politically knifing McDonnell in the final stretch of the campaign, just as his wife apparently did.), the d-RAT candidate who challenged McDonnell.

I also remember the bumper stickers at the time of Holton’s political emergence, “Happiness is a Republican Governor.” As it turned out, Holton’s governance was more like a nightmare for the State. And it took Dick Obenshain (who tragically died in a plane accident I believe) to restore the lustre of the GOP that Holton had so tarnished and squandered.

You recall correctly that some vicious magazine article (from the “New Times”, whatever that was) called Sen. Bill Scott the “dumbest member of the Senate.” Michael Barone was rather harsh on Scott (in the ‘70s, his Almanacs and he himself had more of a liberal tilt), and implied even VA Conservatives had soured on him by the time he announced his retirement in 1977 (saying he was reduced to gratuitously holding up federal judgeship appointments and asking “weird” questions at committee hearings, although I don’t consider either necessarily a negative, especially these days the former - I’d consider his holding up Carter’s appointments during his first two years to be downright heroic !).

One thing to say about Scott, he was certainly was one of our luckiest pols in VA, happening to run right when the libs took out Howard Smith, and being the only serious candidate ballsy enough to want to take out Spong (apparently no other Republican wanted to do it, thinking him undefeatable).

Barone was equally harsh in his assessment of Mills Godwin’s second term as Governor (and first as a Republican), calling it “torpid.” Of course, with all the “hope and change” crap we see, sometimes NO change is the best of all. Godwin stopping Lt Gov Henry Howell was, of course, of paramount importance. Interesting to note that the only time we’ve had 3 back-to-back GOP victories for Governor was in 1969, 1973 & 1977, but with three totally different kinds of Republicans (Holton, the liberal urbanite; Godwin, the old-school ex-Byrdite; Dalton, a Mountain Republican).

Barone also correctly predicted Holton would never win office again (too offensively liberal to Republicans, and if he switched to the Dems, they considered him too mavericky). Folks forget now in the race to replace Sen. Scott in ‘78, they had all three wings represented, you had Dick Obenshain of the committed movement Conservatives, John Warner of the elitist Nixonian “Moderates”, and Holton for the left. How Warner was able to get the nod after Obenshain’s death in the plane crash was that he automatically became the “Conservative” when compared next to Holton, although we certainly found out he was anything but. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t too broken up over Mark Warner succeeding him, either.

Paul Trible. I think your assessment of him is correct. I’m going to be a bit harsher and call him a bit of a gutless wonder. Trible, of course, won the Tidewater 1st in 1976 when Tom Downing retired. Like Bill Scott before him, he served three terms before opting to take that Senate run in 1982 (which was not a good year for us) for Sen. Byrd, Jr’s open seat. Beating Lt Gov. Richard Davis (whose campaign manager was none other than Serpenthead James Carville, who by then was pondering getting out of the political biz entirely after a string of defeats, his final stand being the successful, but viscerally vicious campaign he ran for pro-lifer Bob Casey, Sr. for PA Governor in ‘86 when he defeated Lt Gov. Bill Scranton, III in an upset, ironically with Carville’s lambasting Scranton as a weird ex-hippy !).

Well, what’s my main problem with Trible ? Essentially the 1988 Senate race. He wet his shorts when he saw the inexplicably popular (soon to be fleeting) ex-Gov Chuck Robb decide he “wanted” his Senate seat and got out of the way for him. I don’t have much respect for Republicans that cut and run like that, especially at a time we needed as many Senators as possible following our ‘86 loss of the body. What we were left with to run against Robb was a hapless Black minister (whom I believe was liberal) named Maurice Dawkins. Absolutely shameful. Trible should’ve stayed put and fought. After that was over and Robb obliterated Dawkins by a 71-29% margin, Trible then decided he was “entitled” to the Governorship not months after he weaseled out of his Senate race. Of course, Marshall Coleman ended up narrowly defeating him (I’d have voted for Congressman Stan Parris, who placed 3rd), and Coleman went on to lose to Doug Wilder.

Willis Robertson. No, he wasn’t Appropriations Chairman (Carl Hayden of Arizona was during that period, from 1955-69). Robertson was co-chairman on the Joint Committee on Defense Production and chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency at the time of his defeat. Robertson was also not a young man at the time. He was elected with FDR to the House in 1932 and won Carter Glass’s Senate seat 14 years later in 1946 (he was already almost 60 by the time he entered the Senate - he was close to 80 running his reelection effort and the ever-increasing number of liberals and Blacks voting in the Dem primary by 1966 was looking to purge every old-time Dem they could, Rep. Howard Smith was another victim of the purge, and he had been in Congress even longer than Robertson, and could remember serving with the last pre-Ike VA Republican, Menalcus Lankford). Byrd, Sr.’s death in 1965 removed one of their big targets, and after getting Robertson and Smith, Byrd, Jr. was their next target (which, of course, they never got).

Larry Sabato. Yes, I can’t stand him. That guy is always trotted out by the networks as Mr. Impartial, and he is nothing but another liberal academic who prays for Democrat victories.

One last thing about Linwood Holton (I sometimes mockingly call him Abner, since that’s his first name, Linwood is his middle), I now cannot personally recall the last Republican he endorsed. He is what we term a DIABLO, well past being a RINO. He routinely endorses Democrats. He endorsed Kerry and Zero. He is, of course, related to outgoing Gov. Kaine because his daughter is his wife and the current First Lady of VA. So obviously endorsements for him go without saying. The media trots out that old liberal phony to claim bipartisan support for Democrat candidates much in the same way they do with the execrable ex-Gov. Bill Milliken of Michigan (Slick Willard’s daddy George’s Lieutenant), who also went out of his way to see a Conservative defeated to succeed him in 1982 in favor of a Democrat. Neither, of course, have any respect or credibility left within Republican ranks (aside from any like-minded DIABLOs).

I’m sure if the VA GOP ever feted “Abner” with a dinner, it’d be a necktie party. ;-)